Information and Consulting

Friday, October 26, 2012

The state of California is in a terrible state. According
to the last count only three people in the whole state completely understand
the new budget, one is the Governor and he is having a difficult time explaining it
to his constituents, the other two live alone and nobody knows who they are.
For the past thirty years school initiatives passed as well as those for fast
trains, highway expansions and save the universe bonds. Californians have grown
weary of the state’s perpetual begging and badgering and no longer believe the
politicians, teachers unions, environmentalists, and the news. This may be an
electorate who says no to everything this year. “Governor, go pound sand.”

More than once I have pointed to the incredible number of
associations, departments, commissions, and agencies that seem to proliferate
at the state level. No department is immune. Many are at cross purposes, all
cost money. And the streets still fall apart, kids can’t read, and more and
more people are out of work.

This is not the blog to find answers; if I knew the
answers I would bottle it and sell it on street corners (with a license of
course, I’ve applied but still waiting). Besides no one listens anymore – it’s
all shouting and finger-pointing, then when they lose, they go away and sulk.
But they will return, bet on it.

Let’s just look at one example, the California
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA for short). Forty years ago its goal was simple;
analyze a proposed project so that all the major issues are set before a city
council or county supervisors for a more educated approval or denial. If has
morphed into a huge industry that fundamentally says to most developers “No
way, no how.” Due to the volume of paperwork generated for even the smallest
project, no one reads the reports, no one understands them, and what is more
important, nothing gets done due to the potential for lawsuits. Even now
litigation is built into the planning process. Not on the document itself but
on “how” the document was produced, and its scope, and its facts. CEQA on CEQA.

Huge developments and projects (from residential to
industrial) take years to evolve and get built, many go through economic shifts
(like the last four years), they never turn out as they are planned. These
projects become instantly out of sync with the approved Environmental Impact
Report (EIR). Thus, is there any value in the document itself? What is its
purpose then? Is it worth the costs? I can assure you that every nickel spent
on an EIR is passed on to the consumer through higher and higher pricing.

It’s all about consultants and experts, in fact a whole
industry - with little or no culpability - has grown serving these interests. To
my point, just have the governor announce that CEQA should be thrown out and
a newer and more streamlined process will instituted that quickly looks at a
project and then allows it to move forward. Stand back, the screams from state
agencies (water quality, traffic, etc.), Sierra Club and other environmental
groups, as well as NIMBYs, NONONOs, and other special interests will cause
deafness. The system is broken and BandAids won’t do the job.

The legal world just loves CEQA and EIRs. This process
and these documents become so convoluted that only $500 an hour attorneys
understand them, just get six in a room and listen to their opinions – none
will agree. It is supposed to be a factual document, based on real science and
real calculations, phooey. Much is opinion and speculation based on
extrapolations the greatest computers couldn’t calculate. And if it is a “pet”
project, they try circumvent the process, such as the High Speed Rail’s
attempt to avoid CEQA and “speed” things up. Welcome to our
side of the street.

It is now a process that is fundamentally structured to
hobble or squash concepts and projects. Whether a new town, affordable housing,
gas extraction, high speed rail, highways, and even solar projects – go figure.
The defenders say that the courts have continually been fair and just when
reviewing these claims. Now that is the problem in and of itself - if the
process were fair and just, these documents should not have to be decided in court. Years of lost time and money are
wasted in the courts.

A new process must be developed to
assess projects. Do I believe that this can happen? No. Do I think that the
various special interests will give up their assumed importance? No. Do I
believe that the state will find a way to make allow things to happen
again? No. Do I believe we are a long way from building and growing ourselves
out of our problems? Yes.

Why do you think in this state “shovel ready projects”
didn’t happen? The EIR wasn’t and it still isn’t finished.

Friday, October 19, 2012

There is much in this world we don’t understand. Things
like: Why does gasoline go up fifty cents overnight? Why with full airplanes,
they don’t add more flights? Why newspapers get thinner and thinner when there
is obviously more and more news? Why my stocks go down when the market goes up
and conversely why they go up when the market goes down? And lastly, why do so
many people like New York City?

I am a provincial soul from California (actually Northern
California). Here the weather and the politics are mild, pot in some form or
another is legalish, restaurants open and close with regularity, and we believe
in the tooth fairy, earthquakes that never happen, and that actors make great
politicians. Ho-hum.

Take America’s number one or two vacation destination
(depending on the poll), San Francisco. Wonderful weather, cool afternoon fogs,
bright days, pleasant winds; when it rains it is soft with little insult.
Streets are moderately clean as are the people. We are a melting pot (gruyere
cheese please) of nationalities, refugees, languages, and apartment dwellers.
It is never difficult to find some minority group in the Bay Area that
represents a country that has had some sad unfortunate event occur in their
home country, if there were refuges from Antarctica, there would be three
families living together in an abandoned walk-in freezer south of Market
Street. We take everyone.

A Little Bit of Heaven!

And now back to New York!

We non-New Yorkers are pummeled nightly by shows about
New York. CSI New York, Person of
Interest, 2 Broke Girls, Suits, Blue Bloods, White Collar, Mad Men, Law and
Order (and the whole never ending series), and many others in all too never ending syndication.
And don’t even start with movies and reality shows. As we walked the streets of
New York, I thought I had been there before - like last night.

We were staying an elegant hotel near Central Park, good to
great restaurants within blocks, but, good-God, meals were tough to
keep below $125 for two – and we tried. Now I know, if you’re going to New York
you expect this, everything is expensive. But it is made up for by the very,
very, inexpensive baubles (designer handbags, scarves, Rolexes) on the street – so I
guess everything balances out.

It is crowded, swanky, low-brow, high-brow, glittery,
schmaltzy, stylish and plain, overrated and underrated. From the still under
construction Ground Zero Memorial (which will take your breath away), to the
top of the Empire State Building (millions and millions have gone before), it
is a place of large scale thoughts and dreams. It is also tired and worn-out neighborhoods – East Village, Greenwich Village, SOHO, all showing empty store
fronts, closed restaurants, and busted sidewalks.

Wall Street Bull with Admirers

It is a four story town with skyscrapers, like your mom
looking over your shoulder, staring down on you while you do your homework or
listening while you talk with your girlfriend. It is tourists with folded maps
posing as targets for hippsters, hucksters, and hooligans. It queues waiting
for the next hop-on/hop-off bus. It’s twenty-somethings (seems to be the
dominant demographic) wandering about with the latest styles or the latest
knock-offs in a bag. It’s hip-hop dancing on the street corners and horse drawn
carriages. It’s the last place in America where men wear suits when they go to
work. It is where retail comes and goes so fast the streets are perpetually covered
in scaffolding. It’s a clean smelling city after a rain – not like San
Francisco when it is ripe from a long rainless summer. It’s a thousand
tourist’s rubbing the bull on Wall Street’s balls and having a Kodak moment. It
is Chinatown where some haven’t left its twenty square blocks in years and play
mahjong every day – rain or shine. It is the Hudson River side with parks,
bikeways, and cruise ships. It is Bryant Park, Central Park, Washington Square,
Battery Park, and Rockefeller Center, each saying much with just two words.

The Cascade at Ground Zero

And it is the Ground Zero Memorial with its twin central
square cascade pools that seem bottomless and eternally deep.

New York City’s intensity is something, I guess, that you
have to be born to, like an English Manor. It is hard, very hard, to walk in
on. Too much information, too much noise, too much, much. I understand that it
is a rite of passage: high school, college, degree, the West Village. Something
for your resume, something to tell the grandkids. San Francisco is like that; I
did that, for twenty years, and then decamped to the suburbs. Others are still
doing it today (part of the reason for SF’s almost 10% increase in rents during
the last year).

Friday, October 12, 2012

I have a stack of reports on my desktop on the rosy
outlook for housing. Even Las Vegas is showing signs of recovery. But please,
stop already. I believe that every newspaper, trade magazine, and housing blogger (Et tu, Brute?) is looking for housing
articles and lights at ends of tunnels. Sure housing will turn around, it HAS to. As I have written before it is
just plain demographics and the current affordability of housing. Why wouldn’t
housing sales go up with low prices and extremely low mortgage rates – some now
as low as 3%.

So housing is boring. Is that shimmering glow on the
horizon the nascent sun, giver of life? No, it’s the latest housing statistics
from the feds. So please, just stop. It is worse than predicting the rise and
fall of the stock market based on the fight plan of a flock of crows. So please
just tell me once and while – like at the end of the quarter. I really don’t care
what the affordability is in Kansas. Kansas of all places – home of rainbows, tornadoes, and munchkins. So please stop. I will try to follow my own ruminations
and keep housing on the back burner for a while. No thanks needed.

Acela by Amtrak

New Topic

I have for the better part of two years beat the
High-Speed Rail in California over the head with anything I could find: old
railroad ties, lengths of steel rail, and stiff necked politicians all in an
effort to find some reality in the notion of flying across California's Central
Valley at 250 miles per hour. But your humble blogger here has had a small epiphany,
but like a good politician I will not change my stance on the 100 billion
dollar two-rail boondoggle underway in California.

We were traveling from New York to Boston just last week
and took the Acela train. Now I know you Eastern-Seaboarders just role your
eyes over us California provincials (with great justification), but I have to
admit that the train is very cool and the most surprising thing is that it works.
We left on time and arrived on time. It flew along the rails at what felt like
speeds of almost a hundred miles an hour (it has gone to 150mph according to
Wikipedia). It extends to Washington D.C. on the south and Boston on the north.
It is one of the few Amtrak lines that make a profit. In fact (according to
Wiki) the two lines (fast and local) through this corridor provides half of
Amtrak’s total national revenue.

Trains are a heck of a lot more enjoyable than airplanes –
especially today. United Airlines and other carrier’s economy seats were redesigned
by a group sponsored by the Spanish Inquisition. After five hours in one of
their seats you would confess to sleeping farm animals. Trains have wide
aisles, you can actually watch your luggage from your seat, they serve free
drinks (in First Class – which really isn’t worth it), and they actually deposit
you in the heart of the city. Gee!

I know, I know, I have challenged the Cal HSR for years,
and will continue to do so. We can’t afford it, period. No more than I can
afford a Bentley GT Coupe (my favorite automobile), just because I want it doesn’t
mean I will get one. Why doesn’t the governor try real hard to fix the current
track alignment and equipment of the Coast Starlight that goes to LA along the
coastal corridor. Make it work like the Acela (use the Four Season Hotel model of customer
satisfaction) – everything is there – especially the most important element, people.
It currently carries 1/10th the traffic of the Acela and makes less than 10% of
the same revenue. Sadly the reviews tend to show the service and scheduling to be
less than acceptable (actually awful) and this is biggest reason for its poor
reception in California (GO HERE).

As any hotelier can tell you it is the service and the
respect for your guests by the staff that is paramount and in the case of
travel, adherence to schedules as well. But without competition or alternatives
people will drive or fly. Governor don’t try and fix the problem with a new
train – fix the old one.

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About Me

Greg was born in 1949 in Traverse City, Michigan. Raised near Chicago he moved to California in 1971. The son of a journalist and entrepreneur, Greg has never forgotten his roots; his non-fiction work has focused on the Midwest region. Californian by choice, Mr. Randall makes his home in Walnut Creek, California with his wife, constant companion, and business partner. His preferred fiction genre is mystery/thrillers and historically based novels.